I attended the First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa,Alabama from the time I was 4 until the time until I was about 11 or 12. That year, we were sitting in the sanctuary
waiting for the morning service to start when there was mild disturbance at the
back of the sanctuary (which would have been the front entrance of the
church). We would later learn that an
African-American couple had come to the church to worship, but they were turned
away at the door by some of the greeters.
My parents were appalled and we left the church shortly after that.
My parents were good like that, though our family
was not perfect at all. While all people
were welcome in our home, racial jokes still slipped into our conversations
from time to time and there were some very well-meaning comments about “those
people”. While imperfect, there was a stark contrast
between my family and some of the others in our area. We had hateful and threatening notes tacked
to our door by a neighbor when my parents invited ALL students from local
schools to Youth for Christ meetings in our home. My mom was hesitant when I wanted to invite
my friend, Henry Pickens, home from elementary school because there were still
those that openly and actively sought to segregate our society and who
responded with anger and hatred. On this
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I am grateful that things are not as they were.
Because of my experiences as a child, I am so
pleased when I see a growing mix of race in my current congregation in Nashville
(First Baptist Church). I am also sure that things are not the same at the
First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa as they were in the 70’s. I love that it is a person’s desire to be
present in church and their desire to worship God rather than anything else
that makes them welcome in our buildings.
I realize that the dream of Dr. King has not yet been fully
accomplished. Our churches are still
predominately segregated by color.
Racism has gone underground and become more hushed. People realize that it is not acceptable to
hate out loud, so they do it quietly behind closed doors and in their
hearts. Sometimes I hear people say, “I’m
not a racist. I just think…” Whatever comes out next is almost always a
racist statement. People have not yet
owned all of their biases and we have not come to place where all people are
truly seen as being created equal. We
keep finding new groups of “others” to alienate and segregate. However, I know it is not as it was when I
was a child. I continue to pray for a day when our children will be judged not by the color of their skin (or their nationality, or any other external quality), but by the content of their character.
